Movie Review: From Up on Poppy Hill
I’m not crying, you’re!
There are very few movies that can make me feel anything at this point. It might be from all of the garbage movies that I watched as a teenager, but it takes a lot for a film to move me. I always want movies to take me to a different place. I want to feel that what I’m viewing is real; somehow, whatever is on the screen is real. I think that Studio Ghibli was able to do it with From Up on Poppy Hill. For the rest of this article, there will be SPOILERS!!! (For a movie that is almost a decade old.)
From Up on Poppy Hill is a coming of age, love story with twists and turns that no one could see coming. I’m pretty good at guessing the overall story for most movies, but this twist was so sad and on a whole other level. I did not see the blood relationship coming into play. I cannot think of another movie that has the same kind of surprise in it. I still don’t know how I feel about this twist.
At the start of the movie, the world they begin to show and create is breathtaking. I feel that somehow you get more from an animated film. Live-action anything doesn’t hold the same weight for me. There is such beauty, such whimsy that you get from animated movies — the feeling of showing a different world that feels fake yet real all in the same moment.
The animation style they use makes the water look swimmable, the roads drivable, and the people loveable. Maybe it’s because they are just “normal” people that we are following. Perhaps it’s the fact that no one will watch another movie with the main characters in it. I don’t know what makes it so enchanted, but something in this movie is distinct.
Umi, the main character, has a great relationship with her Grandma. This relationship is something we can all respect. Heck, it’s even something that I wish I had. The whole family relationship is something that feels so real but fantasy-like. Everyone feels like they are part of one big happy family that I want to join.
The school and the relationship that Umi has with Shun, the love interest, is what most of the movie is based around. Also, the renovation of the Quartier Latin is another massive part of the story. I would say this is more of the secondary plot to the love story of Umi and Shun. Watching these two people find one another is such a beautiful thing. The love that they have for one another jumps out the screen and into your heart.
I don’t know if there is a single thing that makes this movie a true masterpiece, or if it’s just all of the little things, but this is a movie that will stand the test of time. You could watch this opening day in Japan, years later on HBO max, or decades into the future, and you will feel the same way. You will feel the passion and pride that every single person put into this piece of art. I hope that I can one day make something as timeless as From Up on Poppy Hill. I would give this movie 5 signal flags out of 5.
“The creation of a single world comes from a huge number of fragments and chaos.” — Hayao Miyazaki.